The Price of Christine

WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON IN THIS

COUNTRY? shouted the Daily Mirror. As if anyone didn't know. What went on was just the kind of story on which the Mirror thrives. Although it had started out merely as venery in high (and several low) places, it grew into a major scandal that not only smashed the career of a promising Tory politician, but also raised some troubling questions about British security and rocked the Macmillan government. Otherwise, it read like La Dolce Vita, Anglo-Saxon style.

The story first emerged partially last March, when its leading characters became publicly identified: red-haired Christine Keeler, who came from Middlesex to sling hash at 17, and at 21 was the West End's most-called girl; John Profumo, 48, the able War Minister and man-about-Mayfair, whose virile charm proved something of a Tory asset after those homosexual spy scandals; and Dr. Stephen Ward, 43, a socialite osteopath (and son of the Anglican canon of Rochester Cathedral), who said he liked helping attractive girls of humble birth adapt to "the needs and stresses of modern living."

After months of rumor, a Labor M.P. challenged the government to deny the rumors of a minister's indiscretions with Christine. Profumo's firm denial of wrongdoing, and a demonstration of support from Prime Minister Macmillan, quashed the story temporarily-until it burst forth again last week. This time Profumo resigned from the government after an abrupt, abject confession that he had previously lied to the Prime Minister, his colleagues and the House of Commons.

Coexistence. Of noble Italian descent, John Dennis Profumo had every qualification to reach the Tories' top ranks: Harrow and Oxford, fine war record, brains, drive, and a beautiful wife, Movie Actress Valerie (Great Expectations) Hobson. Together, the Pro-fumos were weekending at Cliveden, famed country estate of Lord and Lady Astor, when they were introduced to Christine in 1961. Also present: Stephen Ward, who had a cottage on the place. Thereafter, Valerie stayed home while Jack visited Christine at Ward's flat in Wimpole Mews. What the War Minister never knew was that Christine had another regular visitor, Evgeny Ivanov, who was a Soviet naval attache in London. A round-eyed observer of their coexistence was Nymphet Marilyn ("Mandy") Rice-Davies, a well-developed 16-year-old, who was one of Christine's intimates. "The farcical thing about it all," as Mandy told the press, "was that, on more than one occasion, as Jack left Christine at the flat, Ivanov walked in."

It possibly seemed less hilarious to British MI-5 intelligence agents, who were shadowing Ivanov at the time, to find that their War Minister was unwittingly sharing a bed with a suspected Soviet spy.

Though they tried not to be seen in public, Profumo sometimes took Christine for drives, she later recalled. "He showed me the War Office, where he worked. He even showed me Downing Street." But in time Profumo stopped seeing Christine because, she explained, he was "scared it would ruin his career." Comrade Ivanov was shipped off to Moscow, and the "model" from Middlesex, who had acquired a taste for jazz on the way up, hit the blues belt and acquired a Jamaican lover named Johnnie Edgecombe. But he could never understand what her telephone was for. "He seemed to think," Christine complained later, "that I was going to live with him forever." One day, Johnnie showed up with a gun and fired several bullets into the door before the bobbies bagged him.

Multiracialism. After Johnnie went to jail, there was another West Indian lover, Aloysius "Lucky" Gordon, who, if anything, was even more narrow-minded. In April he beat her up. Last week, at his trial for assault, Aloysius was so ungallant as to testify that he had kept her supplied with marijuana, while all she gave him in return was VD. "You can say this for Christine," said a leading Labor politician. "At least she's multiracial."

The scandal might have died, had it not been resurrected by Stephen Ward himself. Seven weeks after Profumo's denial, he told the Prime Minister's private secretary that the War Minister had lied in Commons, that he had indeed had an affair with Christine Keeler. Ward repeated his charges in letters to Home Secretary Henry Brooke and Labor Party Leader Harold Wilson. Profumo was confronted with this new accusation, but it was not until last week that he startled Tory officials by blurting the truth about Christine. In a letter to the vacationing Prime Minister, Profumo resigned as War Minister and as M.P. for Stratford-on-Avon, confessing his "grave misdemeanor." Said he: "I cannot tell you of my deep remorse." Macmillan accepted his resignation, describing the affair as "a great tragedy." Then Profumo and his wife left their Regent's Park home and disappeared into the country.

Dilemma. The scandal he left be hind got livelier every day. Christine Keeler, who was back from a Continental holiday and suddenly sported a "business manager" and a new Rolls-Royce, added more off-color to the saga by telling and selling her story to the papers. "I was very fond of Jack," she said wistfully. "If ever we meet again, we have at least this in common-both our careers have been ruined." Mandy chimed in with details of the high living that had earned her a Jaguar, mink and diamonds by her 17th birthday. At one dinner party, she recalled, "a naked man wearing a mask waited on table like a slave. He had to have a mask because he was so well known."

Meanwhile Stephen Ward's explanations filled the newspapers and TV screens. The affair, he protested, had given rise to "a whole train of rumors, and all sorts of people were mentioned, with the implication that I'd been trying to procure them for Miss Keeler." Despite his subsequent attempt to protect Profumo and the government, said Ward, he had reported Profumo's liaison to British intelligence when it was at its height in 1961. Said he: "I've almost had a nervous breakdown. It's a terrible dilemma. One didn't want to bitch up anybody. You owe it to your friends. But I must clear myself."

For the immediate future, Stephen Ward will do his explaining in court. At week's end Scotland Yard plucked the osteopath from his white Jaguar sports car and jailed him on charges of violating Britain's Sexual Offenses Act by "living wholly or in part on the earnings of prostitution."

Unrest. As a matter of political tactics, the Labor Party decided to treat the Profumo affair not so much as a moral indictment of uppercrust Britain but rather as another flagrant example of the erratic workings of Britain's security system, If, argued Laborites, British intelligence had known all along that Britain's War Minister had shared a call girl with a Soviet agent, why was nothing done to break up a liaison that might expose him to Russian blackmail? Was Macmillan told? If so, had the government encouraged Profumo to lie about his dalliance with Christine Kee ler solely in order to avert a damaging scandal?

Unflappable Harold Macmillan, who did not allow last week's events to interrupt his golfing vacation, will be able to present the government's case when Parliament reconvenes next week. He may yet, as in the past, confound his critics in Commons. But the affair may seriously affect the Tories' already shaky chances at the next elections, which Macmillan will now probably try to delay. Said Tory Backbencher Lord Lambton: "The harm this will do to the Conservative Party will be enormous. There has been for some time a general feeling of unrest in this country as to the morality of the present government. This feeling will be immensely increased."

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